The lobster was moving forward, steady as ever, into the black canyon, following the long line of its companions.
McCulloch was too stunned and dazed to attempt contact for a long while. Finally, when he felt some measure of composure return, he reached his mind into his host’s:
—What happened?
—I cannot say. What did it seem like to you?
—The water grew wild and stormy. I saw faces out of the former world. Friends of mine. They were pulling at my arms. You felt nothing?
—Nothing, said the host, except a sense of your own turmoil. We are deep here: beyond the reach of storms.
—Evidently I’m not.
—Perhaps your homefaring-time is coming. Your world is summoning you.
Of course! The faces, the pulling at his arms—the plausibility of the host’s suggestion left McCulloch trembling with dismay. Homefaring-time! Back there in the lost and inconceivable past, they had begun angling for him, casting their line into the vast gulf of time—
—I’m not ready, he protested. I’ve only just arrived here! I know nothing yet! How can they call me so soon?
—Resist them, if you would remain.
—Will you help me?
—How would that be possible?
—I’m not sure, McCulloch said. But it’s too early for me to go back. If they pull on me again, hold me! Can you?
—I can try, friend human McCulloch.
—And you have to keep your promise to me now.
—What promise is that?
—You said you would explain things to me. Why you’ve undertaken this pilgrimage. What it is I’m supposed to be the Omen of. What happens when the Time comes. The Molting of the World.
—Ah, said the host.
But that was all it said. In silence it scrabbled with busy legs over a sharply creviced terrain. McCulloch felt a fierce impatience growing in him. What if they yanked him again, now, and this time they succeeded? There was so much yet to learn! But he hesitated to prod the host again, feeling abashed. Long moments passed. Two more squids appeared: the radiance of their probing minds was like twin searchlights overhead. The ocean floor sloped downward gradually but perceptibly here. The squids vanished, and another of the predatory big-mouthed swimming-things, looking as immense as a whale and, McCulloch supposed, filling the same ecological niche, came cruising down into the level where the lobsters marched, considered their numbers in what appeared to be some surprise, and swam slowly upward again and out of sight. Something else of great size, flapping enormous wings somewhat like those of a stingray but clearly just a boneless mass of chitin-strutted flesh, appeared next, surveyed the pilgrims with equally bland curiosity, and flew to the front of the line of lobsters, where McCulloch lost it in the darkness. While all of this was happening the host was quiet and inaccessible, and McCulloch did not dare attempt to penetrate its privacy. But then, as the pilgrims were moving through a region where huge, dim-witted scallops with great bright eyes nestled everywhere, waving gaudy pink and blue mantles, the host unexpectedly resumed the conversation as though there had been no interruption, saying:
—What we call the Time of the Molting of the World is the time when the world undergoes a change of nature, and is purified and reborn. At such a time, we journey to the place of dry land, and perform certain holy rites.
—And these rites bring about the Molting of the World? McCulloch asked.
—Not at all. The Molting is an event wholly beyond our control. The rites are performed for our own sakes, not for the world’s.
—I’m not sure I understand.
—We wish to survive the Molting, to travel onward into the world to come. For this reason, at a Time of Molting, we must make our observances, we must demonstrate our worth. It is the responsibility of my people. We bear the duty for all the peoples of the world.
—A priestly caste, is that it? McCulloch said. When this cataclysm comes, the lobsters go forth to say the prayers for everyone, so that everyone’s soul will survive?
The host was silent again: pondering McCulloch’s terms, perhaps, translating them into more appropriate equivalents. Eventually it replied:
—That is essentially correct.
—But other peoples can join the pilgrimage if they want. Those crabs. The anemones. The squids, even?
—We invite all to come. But we do not expect anyone but ourselves actually to do it.
—How often has there been such a ceremony? McCulloch asked.
—I cannot say. Never, perhaps.
—Never?
—The Molting of the World is not a common event. We think it has happened only twice since the beginning of time.
In amazement McCulloch said:
—Twice since the world began, and you think it’s going to happen again in your own lifetimes?
—Of course we cannot be sure of that. But we have had an Omen, or so we think, and we must abide by that. It was foretold that when the end is near, an emissary from the former world would come among us. And so it has come to pass. Is that not so?
—Indeed.
—Then we must make the pilgrimage, for if you have not brought the Omen we have merely wasted some effort, but if you are the true herald we will have forfeited all of eternity if we let your message go unheeded.
It sounded eerily familiar to McCulloch: a messianic prophecy, a cult of the millennium, an apocalyptic transfiguration. He felt for a moment as though he had landed in the ninth century instead of in some impossibly remote future epoch. And yet the host’s tone was so calm and rational, the sense of spiritual obligation that the lobster conveyed was so profound, that McCulloch found nothing absurd in these beliefs. Perhaps the world did end from time to time, and the performing of certain rituals did in fact permit its inhabitants to transfer their souls onward into whatever unimaginable environment was to succeed the present one. Perhaps.
—Tell me, said McCulloch. What were the former worlds like, and what will the next one be?
—You should know more about the former worlds than I, friend human McCulloch. And as for the world to come, we may only speculate.
—But what are your traditions about those worlds?
—The first world, the lobster said, was a world of fire. —You can understand fire, living in the sea? —We have heard tales of it from those who have been to the dry place. Above the water there is air, and in the air there hangs a ball of fire, which gives the world warmth. Is this not the case?
McCulloch, hearing a creature of the ocean floor speak of things so far beyond its scope and comprehension, felt a warm burst of delight and admiration.
—Yes! We call that ball of fire the sun.
—Ah, so that is what you mean, when you think of the sun! The word was a mystery to me, when first you used it. But I understand you much better now, do you not agree?
—You amaze me.
—The first world, so we think, was fire: it was like the sun. And when we dwelled upon that
